How the insurance market is developing in foreign countries. Comparative analysis of the insurance system in different countries

In the second half of the twentieth century. the global insurance market has entered a new phase of development. Passing through a chain of crises, shaking its various segments, adapting to the rapidly changing economic situation, the markets of insurance services in various countries began to actively develop towards the creation of a single international insurance space. This consolidation trend has affected all areas of the insurance business.

Among the reasons for the emergence of a global trend towards integration in the insurance market, it is necessary to single out a number of objective factors. Among the most important of them is the entry of the world community to a new stage of development, reflecting the emergence of closer contacts between national markets and the creation of a single cultural, information and economic space... The effect of erasing economic and cultural boundaries between countries, leading to an expansion of the circle of partners and foreign representations of companies, the emergence of a large-scale international division labor, as well as the international tourism industry, are pushing the insurance business across national borders.

The catalyst for integration in the European insurance market was the creation of the European Monetary and Financial Union. Changes in the market structure associated with the emergence of a unified insurance market in July 1994 affected not only European companies, but also entailed a response from insurers from other countries, primarily the United States.

Another factor contributing to the integration of the insurance business is the unification of insurance conditions. This unification is carried out both through direct borrowing of insurance technology by the less developed in insurance relation countries from more developed countries, and by introducing divisions of large international insurers into the national markets of these countries. A special role in the implementation of the first option for unification of the insurance business is played by the participation of various partners of insurers: reinsurers, assistance services, emergency commissioners, etc.

It should be noted that the integration processes are not confined within the insurance market. One of the areas of integration that goes beyond the insurance market is the interpenetration of insurance and banking business... Motivation for this direction integration processes is also understandable: on the one hand, such mergers allow more efficient use of the service infrastructure of the consolidating companies and diversify the product range, on the other hand, such transactions in most cases allow increasing market value merged companies.

Finally, the formation of global world communication and information systems creates the technical prerequisites for expanding the insurance business beyond national borders. For many insurers, neglecting these assumptions could result in the loss of tomorrow's market positions.

Countries such as the USA, Great Britain, Germany, Japan, Italy and Switzerland are considered leaders in the insurance market. But the best development of insurance is observed in the United States. It is the American activity in the field of insurance that has received the largest scale. Its insurance monopolies control about half of the insurance market in developed countries. Insurance companies in the United States are engaged in several types of insurance. The first type is bekift. This includes life and health insurance, health insurance, pension insurance, savings insurance and others. Another type is commercial insurance, which has a fairly large selection of services.

The last type is personal insurance. It should be understood as insurance of property of citizens, for example, buildings, cars, etc.

The USA is the only country in the world where the insurance business is not regulated by law. The specificity of American insurance is the presence in its structure of a large number of insurance intermediaries. The number of agents here is about 500 thousand people.

The UK international insurance market is also one of the largest. The largest Insurance companies mira have subsidiaries in London. And all international insurance brokers have located their offices here. Pass through this state financial flows from around the world.

Major national international brokers and independent insurance agencies are of prime importance in the UK insurance market. They are rewarded for their services in the form of commissions. About half of all insurance and reinsurance contracts in this country are drawn up by intermediaries.

The insurance business in Germany is developing rapidly. Every year the amount of accrued insurance payments grows here by 10%. Activities in the insurance market in this country are strictly controlled by the state. Employees, regardless of the branch of activity in which they are employed, must necessarily conclude contracts for social insurance. The only exceptions are employees in the private insurance sector. Social insurance includes insurance of such cases as unemployment and temporary disability, as well as insurance for old age.

A special feature of insurance in Germany is the absence of insurance intermediaries. When offering their products, insurance companies simply send information about them by mail. This way of selling insurance services is the most economical.

As the largest national insurance market, the United States retains the leading position in the world in terms of the number of mergers: more than 40% of the analyzed transactions took place in the American insurance market. Such a high rate is explained by two reasons: objectively high financial capacity and the forced necessity of consolidation in order to confront European competitors.

The investment potential of the US insurance market is really high. The volume of collected premiums significantly exceeds similar indicators in the European and Asian national markets, and the US share in total insurance revenues around the world as a whole is more than 30% (Table 3). The US insurance market is also the leader in terms of the amount of insurance premiums per capita: annual insurance premiums per capita for the past three years have exceeded USD 2,500. For comparison, the average European cost of insurance per person ranges from $ 1,000 to $ 2,500 per year. One of economic indicators The most commonly used to assess the level of development of the insurance business is GDP.

From table. Figures 3 and 4 clearly show the qualitative correlation between the level of insurance premium collection and the GDP indicator. This once again confirms the fact that development in the insurance sector is closely related to overall economic growth. So in the United States in 2010, GDP growth amounted to 3.8%, while the inflation rate remained at the level of 2%.

Tab. 3. Volumes of insurance premiums of the largest national insurance markets

For comparison: in Europe, only in Great Britain, GDP growth exceeded 3%, and in Japan it turned out to be quite insignificant - only 0.5% (Table 4). Among European countries, the leading positions in this indicator are retained by Great Britain, Germany, France and Italy. It is not surprising that these countries are also leaders in the number of mergers in which they acted as initiators.

Table 4. GDP of the most developed insurance countries

A comparison of these tables also shows that the depressive state of the Japanese insurance market is clearly illustrated by the state of stagnation of the entire economy of this country. Over the past four years, many Japanese insurance companies have been ousted from among the world's leaders by Americans and Europeans. And the securities of the largest insurance companies fell sharply at trading on March 11 amid news of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. It is reported by BBC News. Thus, in Frankfurt, Munich Re shares fell 5.3 percent, Allianz - 1.7 percent, and Swiss Re and Hannover Re - more than four percent. In London, insurance firms Admiral, RSA and Prudential lost 2.4, 1.9 and 1.7 percent, respectively.

The economic indicator used to assess the level of development of the insurance business is the dynamics of the growth of the total insurance premium to GDP. It characterizes the medium-term potential of the national insurance market (Fig. 3). According to the presented data, the most growing insurance market among economically developed countries is the French insurance market. The high growth in the level of collection of insurance premiums to GDP, as well as a significant increase in the absolute value of collected insurance premiums (over the past three years by more than 40%) are one of the indicators of the attractiveness of the French insurance market for foreign investors.

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Such high rates, as well as the openness of the domestic insurance market, served as a decisive argument when choosing France as an object for expansion by insurers from other countries. A natural consequence of this has been a sharp increase in the presence of foreign insurers in the French market in recent years. Another important factor that determines the level of activity of integration processes is internal structure national insurance market of the state.

Most developed national insurance markets are characterized by a high level of concentration of insurance volumes by the largest operators. It should be noted that the assessment of the concentration level based on the total collected premiums is not entirely correct when it comes to the current activities of insurers. In this case, it is necessary to take into account a more accurate analogy of insurance products, methods of their distribution and the coincidence of the insurance field. However, when analyzing the strategic prospects of companies in the market, with a high degree of certainty, all companies can be considered competitors, and then this method of calculating concentration gives a sufficient assessment of their potential. Despite the high level of concentration inherent in most markets, two different types of mature national insurance markets can be distinguished.

The first type of market is an insurance community with a clear leader - a company whose market share is more than 15-20% of the total insurance premium, and the rest of the companies are significantly inferior to the leader in terms of scale of activity. This type includes, for example, insurance markets Germany and Italy. The leaders of the insurance business in these countries are the Allianz and Assicurazioni Generali insurance groups. Allianz has an annual turnover of over 40 and Assicurazioni Generali 20 billion US dollars.

The second type is made up of insurance markets, in which several large insurance companies or groups with approximately equal financial capabilities coexist. Until recently, this type of insurance market existed in the USA, Great Britain, France and some other European countries. Competition in the insurance markets of these countries remained at a higher level than that of those in the first group. Competition is particularly fierce in the UK, where the insurance market is essentially composed of five independent specialized insurance markets: maritime, property, aviation, automotive and life insurance.

The current state of the international insurance market and state regulation of insurance activities in foreign countries The insurance market as part of the financial and credit system is subject to government regulation in all countries of the world. Government regulation aims to develop the insurance market on the basis of a balance of economic interests of insurers, their clients (policyholders) and the state. The state regulates the insurance market as a whole, as a single system.

The forms and methods of state regulation of insurance are divided into two groups: administrative (direct) and economic (indirect), with administrative methods prevailing for the modern insurance system. The system of administrative regulation is based on the norms of insurance legislation, its central link is the body of insurance supervision. Economic regulators are measures of the state's indirect impact on the insurance market through other spheres and links of the country's financial and credit system (taxation, politics The Central Bank etc.). The central place in the system of regulation of the insurance market of any country is occupied by the insurance supervision bodies, which have the status of state executive bodies, are functionally separate and combine the functions of regulation and control of the insurance market. In different countries, insurance supervisors may be subordinate to or included in the structure of a wide variety of departments, but at the same time they have a sufficient degree of autonomy in decision-making. In many European countries, insurance supervisors are institutionally separate and completely independent, including in France (commission insurance control), Germany (federal agency for the supervision of insurance activities) and Sweden (insurance inspectorate). In the United States, all states have insurance oversight departments. In the UK, these functions are vested in the Department of Trade and Industry, and its insurance department carries out practical regulatory activities. In Canada, as in Russia, the insurance market is regulated by structures subordinate to the Ministry of Finance.

The legal basis for the regulation of insurance is laid, as a rule, in federal laws on insurance and / or on the organization of insurance supervision. In France everything legal regulation insurance is concentrated in the 1976 insurance code, which regulates all aspects of the organization of the insurance market and its regulation. The United States, by contrast, has no federal insurance and insurance supervision laws at all.

The law regulates the legal status of the supervisory body, its main tasks, functions and rights, the structure of central bodies and territorial divisions. Within the established competence, insurance supervision bodies are obliged to regulate the single national insurance market by establishing general requirements for registration and licensing, control over collateral financial sustainability insurers, accounting and reporting, conducting methodological developments in the field of insurance, etc. V modern conditions especially in the EU countries, insurance supervisors give priority to the study of financial sustainability. Previously, more attention was paid to the admission of insurers to the market, this practice has continued in countries with economies in transition to this day.

Insurance supervision bodies are the main, but far from the only subject of state regulation of the insurance market. Other state bodies (tax, antimonopoly, central bank). State regulation begins at the stage of admitting insurance companies to the market. The means of regulation here are the procedures for registration and licensing of insurers.

Registration of insurance companies is fundamentally different from the usual registration procedure legal entities... It takes place in two stages. First, the insurance company is registered as an entrepreneurial structure in the territory of a given country (the exception is the EU countries, which now allow the work of insurers from other EU countries without legal registration of any form of commercial presence in the territory of this country). Then it must be registered and entered in the register with the insurance supervisory authorities, where licensing is carried out in parallel with the registration.

Licensing the activities of insurance companies is a procedure for them to obtain state permit to carry out insurance for certain types (classes).

In most developed countries (in the EU, USA, Japan, etc., the only exceptions are the young insurance markets of the Baltic and CIS countries), requirements for specific specialization have been established: "life" (life insurance) and "non life" (other types of insurance) ... The creation of composite insurance companies is prohibited, i.e. engaged in both life insurance and other types of insurance (in the EU countries, as an exception, it is sometimes allowed to continue the activities of previously created composite companies). In addition, in some countries there are requirements for the specialization of companies involved in medical insurance, insurance of bank risks, etc. In developed countries, the specialization of insurers took decades and was the result of natural market processes and only then was legalized in government regulations.

When applying for a license, insurers submit to the insurance supervisory authorities a set of documents that are checked for compliance with legal requirements, as well as in terms of their economic content, compliance of the calculations and plans presented by the insurer with the accepted standards of financial stability. Most countries check:

• -- constituent documents companies and documents confirming its state registration;
• - bank statements or other documents confirming payment authorized capital(the size of the authorized capital is especially important for newly created companies, since they have not yet conducted insurance activities and, therefore, have not formed reserves), as well as the presence of other assets;
• - "input" balance (for newly created insurers) or current financial statements, including the calculation of the correspondence of assets and liabilities (for existing ones);
• - a plan for the development of insurance operations for the near future (in different countries for 1--3 years), reflecting the expected volumes of receipts by types of insurance, as well as (in some countries) planned assets to cover obligations under concluded contracts;
• - rules or conditions of insurance by type of insurance;
• - standard forms of insurance contracts (policies);
• - mathematically and statistically sound systems tariff rates;
• - the procedure for the formation and placement of insurance reserves, as well as in some countries the conditions for the implementation of preventive measures;
• - reinsurance plans, including sometimes (for example, in the UK) with reinsurance contracts attached;
• - information about the management staff of the company and (in some countries, in particular in the UK and the USA) information on the alleged intermediaries and distribution channels In addition, in some countries (in particular, in the UK, Germany, etc.), when applying for a license, new companies provide documents confirming that the positions of managers and key employees in the company are held by specialists who, in their professional training, meet the requirements of the national and international insurance market, who have not been prosecuted for violations of the law. Sometimes it is even required to submit a letter of recommendation from a well-known person in the financial and credit field.

The insurance product is primarily subject to regulation at the licensing stage. The basis of this process is the approval of the conditions (rules) of insurance. There are two fundamental approaches to solving this problem. The first is the approval of the rules of each insurance company on an individual basis (this situation now exists in the United States and other countries, as well as in Russia). The second approach is the work of all insurers on the basis of standard rules for each type of insurance. If a company wants to insure risks not provided for by the standard rules, introduce additional conditions or engage in a new type of insurance for which there are no standard rules, it can submit documents for approval in accordance with the established procedure. special conditions insurance.

The most typical example of this approach is Germany (insurance conditions for each type are approved there at the federal level and have the force of law). In addition, the model rules are widely used in France, Canada and other countries. Standard conditions are not approved according to EU directives property insurance major risks, as well as some transport types. Thus, the insurance company retains the right to offer differentiated insurance coverage for different objects (subject to approval of all deviations from the standard rules in the insurance supervisory authorities).

At the licensing stage, the content of insurance contracts is regulated. It can have varying degrees of detail:

• - lack of activity of supervisory authorities on preliminary verification of the content of contracts (policies) - Great Britain, etc .;
• - preliminary check model contracts(policies) for the existence of essential conditions - France, etc .;
• - preliminary approval of the content of standard forms of contracts (policies) in terms of all conditions - Germany.

The essential conditions of the insurance contract, without which it has no legal force, the legislation of most countries (including Russia) includes the parties to the contract, the insured risks, sums insured and the terms of the contract. These essential conditions are mandatory for treaties in all countries, and in some (for example, in Germany) their list is wider, and in others (in particular, in the UK), on the contrary, there are no specific mandatory conditions contract.

In the licensing process, the price conditions of the insurance contract may also be partially regulated, i.e. insurance rates... Too high tariffs infringe on the interests of the insured in cases of unfair competition or departmental subordination of insurers, too low - are dangerous for the financial stability of the insurer, sometimes serve as an instrument of dumping to capture the market and monopolize. The regulation of tariffs then continues under the control of the incumbent company. Unlike other industries and product markets in insurance, price policy is controlled not so much by the antimonopoly authorities as by the insurance supervisory authorities. In the practice of some countries, for a long time, tariff rates or rigid limits for their fluctuations have been established directly by the insurance supervisory authorities. Sometimes the functions of regulation of tariff rates are transferred by the state to associations of insurers (self-regulatory organizations). In the late 1980s and early 1990s, most countries abandoned direct control over tariffs.

State regulation of the current activities of insurance organizations is aimed primarily at ensuring their financial stability. In all developed countries, the government's requirements for the financial stability of insurers are quite stringent. Priority area here are the regulation and control of the reserves of the insurer (their formation and placement). Insurance supervisory authorities determine the number and composition of insurance reserves, their division into mandatory and voluntary, approve methods for their formation and establish the procedure for reflecting the state of reserves in the reporting of an insurance organization. Modern insurance companies form three groups of reserves: mathematical reserves for life insurance, technical reserves for other types of insurance, and reserves (funds) for preventive measures (Russia switched to such a system in 1994 in accordance with international practice).

No less relevant in modern conditions is the regulation of the investment activity of the insurer, primarily that part of it, which is carried out at the expense of insurance reserves (and this is actually the money of the policyholders), and not at the expense of own funds companies. Insurance supervisors can:

• - to determine the range of permitted and prohibited investment objects;
• - set maximum and / or minimum standards placement in each type of asset ( bank deposits, government and corporate securities, real estate, etc.), as well as restrictions on investment in one object;
• - approve methods for calculating indicators of reliability and liquidity of investments for each object and in general for investment portfolio companies, as well as to establish standard size these indicators;
• - to set restrictions on investments abroad.

The regulation of the placement of insurance reserves serves to achieve a number of goals by the state. First, the direct result is important - ensuring the financial stability of insurers and guarantees that they will fulfill their obligations to customers. Secondly, the regulation of the allocation of reserves also has indirect consequences, as a result of which it can be used as a regulator of the structure of the insurance market and the capital of insurers the consolidation of insurance companies is taking place), the regulator investment market, a tool to stimulate the purchase of certain types of securities. In some countries, the purchase of government debt is mandatory for insurers. In this case, by obliging to invest reserves in government securities, the state thereby ensures a steady demand for them from insurers and turns the insurance industry (and it redistributes up to 8-10% of GDP in developed countries) into a stable lender of the state. Such norms can be used in developed countries, where investments in government securities are considered "risk-free" (note that in our country a similar norm was in effect until 1998, but then it was abandoned).

The direct responsibility of the supervisory authorities is to maintain law and order in the insurance market. Insurance supervisory authorities have the authority to impose sanctions against insurers who violate the law, including the ability to send insurers instructions to eliminate violations (with appropriate control mechanisms for their implementation), suspend and restrict the validity of insurers' licenses until violations are eliminated, revoke licenses and apply to court demanding the liquidation of the insurance organization. To protect the interests of policyholders in developed countries in response to their complaints and appeals, the insurance supervisory authorities also have the right to conduct targeted inspections of the current activities of insurers (this practice is especially widely used in the USA and Germany).

Some countries use regulatory methods such as contributions by insurers to mandatory government reserves, guarantee funds and guarantee deposits. They have reached their maximum development in the United States, since there they are introduced at the level of each state. In contrast, Germany has no guarantee instruments. In domestic practice, such tools are also not used yet.

Their mechanism of action has two sides. On the one hand, they carry positive effect for the market. Here, the principle of a closed distribution of damage, inherent in insurance, operates: from the funds of these funds, payments are made in cases of major catastrophes, bankruptcies of insurers, etc., therefore, they contribute to increasing the reliability of the functioning of the insurance market and protecting the rights of consumers of insurance services. In addition, the state's conjunctural change in the size of guarantee deposits and deductions to guarantee funds (as well as the rate of bank reserves) indirectly either stimulates or hinders the development of the insurance industry. However, on the other hand, the liabilities of a bankrupt insurer (due to an ill-considered tariff, underwriting or investment policy) are actually paid by financially prosperous companies, which reduces the insurer's incentives to search for reliable insurers, a more deliberate approach to their choice and, therefore, does not comply with the principles of a free market. economy.

The value of this indicator varied from 0.6% in 1992. up to 2% in 1998 The share of Russia in the global volume of insurance services (in terms of premiums collected) was approximately 0.3%, which corresponds to the level of India, but is inferior to Norway and China. In general, the degree of development of the insurance business in Russia lags significantly behind most countries with market and transition economies (see Table 1)

Table 1.1. Indicators of insurance activity in various countries

1 Source: European Insurance 1997 in Figures CEA, 1996 data.
2 Source: International Insurance Report, June 1997, 1994 data.
3 According to the State Statistics Committee of the Russian Federation for 1997, data for 1997.

Financial stabilization in 1997 created certain preconditions for the growth of the volume of insurance services. The decline in inflation and the maintenance of the ruble exchange rate gave grounds to count on the development of long-term life insurance and attracting citizens' savings to the insurance sector. A positive factor was the adoption of the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation "Main directions of development national system insurance in Russian Federation in 1998-2000 ". However, the financial crisis has clearly highlighted the problems and difficulties in the development of the insurance industry.

The need for insurance protection of the property interests of legal entities and the population, taking into account the increased risks and deterioration of the main production assets covered to an insignificant extent. The existing estimate of the share of currently insured potential risks of 10%, given by some experts, is clearly overestimated. This conclusion is based on two main arguments.

First, according to the Ministry of Emergency Situations, in 1997 there were more than 1500 major accidents and disasters, 151 thousand fires, as a result of which 1651 people died and more than 82 thousand people were injured. The total damage from these emergencies exceeded 300 billion rubles, which is more than 10 times the amount of total insurance payments for the same year. Losses in most of the emergencies were not insured and compensated.

An example is the crash of the AN-124 transport aircraft, which crashed in December 1997 on residential areas near Irkutsk. Only the lives of the members of the military crew were insured, since the Ministry of Defense is obliged to insure the military personnel and cargo - military aircraft that were ferried to Vietnam. At the same time, the transport plane was not insured (the damage was estimated at $ 70 million), the lives of the victims (69 people died), the homes and property of the injured citizens.

Secondly, it is almost impossible to assess the damage to individuals as a result of accidents, accidents and other unforeseen events, because not all of them are registered. More than 30 thousand people die annually as a result of road traffic accidents and about 200 thousand are injured and injured. Due to the lack of insurance coverage, a significant part of the material and moral damage to individuals is also not reimbursed. The potential of the insurance industry in Russia is practically not being realized, primarily due to the low paying capacity of the population, the lack of attractive investment instruments, mistrust in financial institutions, lack of insurance culture, imperfect legislation.

According to the State Statistics Committee of Russia for 1997, 1,893 insurance organizations were registered in the country, which had 5,062 branches.

By European standards, the level of concentration of the Russian insurance business is relatively low (see Tables 1.2 and 1.3). Although the figures in the tables are not entirely comparable as they cover different types of insurance, they provide an indication of the overall level of concentration in the insurance industry.

Table 1.2. The share of companies in the total volume of insurance operations in Russia, 1997 (v %).

Source: Expert-RA

It is significant that for 9 months of 1998 the concentration in personal insurance. Specific gravity 10 largest companies increased from 35.12 to 46.33%, the 25 largest - from 53.33 to 62.35%. The level of concentration of the insurance business in Europe (in terms of the amount of collected premiums) is clearly evidenced by the data in Table. 1.3 .:

Table 1.3. The degree of concentration in certain types of insurance in European countries, 1996 (%).

Source: European Insurance 1997 in Figures CEA.

In the 90s, the tendency towards centralization of capital has noticeably increased in the global insurance market. a large number of mergers of insurance companies to counter the fierce competition in an increasingly open market. In Eastern Europe, the share of the three largest companies in life insurance is more than 75%, and in insurance other than life insurance - more than 50%.

The Russian market has not yet reached this level of concentration. A large number of small companies with extremely low financial potential operate on it. About the same number of insurance companies are registered in Russia as in the UK, France and Germany combined. However, the aggregate assets of the 30 largest Russian insurance companies are less than 7 billion rubles, which corresponds to the size of an average Western company. Low potential Russian companies, the instability of their position is evidenced by the constant changes in the list of leading companies. In particular, following the results of 9 months of 1998. 39 new companies have appeared among the 100 largest voluntary insurance organizations compared to 1997.

Since the second half of the twentieth century, insurance markets in various countries began to actively develop towards the creation of a single international insurance space. This trend of integration of national insurance markets has affected all areas of the insurance business. Consider this development using the example of 3 countries: the USA, Germany and the UK.

USA. The American insurance business is huge and unmatched in the world. American insurance monopolies control about 50% of the entire insurance market in the industrialized countries of the world. There are over 8,000 property insurance companies and about 2,000 life insurance companies operating in the United States.

Each state has its own insurance legislation and its own regulatory body (supervision). Of a single federal law on insurance and there is no single federal body for supervision of insurance activities.

Each state puts forward its own requirements for the minimum level of capital, the types of insurance offered, conducts audits of controlled insurance companies, carries out general regulation of insurance activities by issuing licenses to brokers, agents and insurance companies themselves.

There are two types of insurance companies in the United States: joint stock companies and mutual insurance companies. There are no state insurance firms. Stock joint stock companies can be acquired by both an individual and a legal entity.

Historically, in the United States, insurance companies have mostly been mutual insurance companies, traditionally smaller in size than joint stock companies.

Insurance companies provide three types of insurance:

1) bekifits (life and health insurance, medical, pensions, savings, etc.);

2) commercial (wide range);

3) personal (meaning insurance of buildings, cars and other property of citizens).

The legislation provides for the specialization of insurance companies in carrying out operations for life and property insurance. The assets of all insurance companies are approximately 1.6 trillion. On average, the assets of one company are $ 950 million, and the 12 largest companies account for $ 45 billion.

The insurance industry in the United States is the only one that is not subject to antitrust laws.

The activities of all US insurers are thoroughly analyzed by three consulting companies: AM Best, Moody S, Standart & Poors, which analyze the state of insurance companies and publish quarterly catalogs of their work. They publish in the press the official ratings of insurance companies in terms of reliability for the client and data on the state of their solvency.

Some companies, especially brokerage companies, have special divisions for the analysis of the activities of other companies. In this case, the main factors for which the analysis is carried out are: financial position; claims payments and service level; safety and loss prevention; flexibility in the work of the company; cost of services (minimum tariff rates).

Loss rate, income and return on investment ratio, and level accounts receivable are considered criteria for the performance of the insurer.

Widely used in the USA electronic bank data for all insurance companies, which makes it possible to distribute companies by risk, premiums, etc.

One of the most important features of the largest US life insurance companies is the fact that, due to the high prestige of insurance companies, multibillion-dollar funds belonging to various pension funds... The task of insurance companies in this case is to ensure the safety and growth of trusted funds through a reasonable investment policy. For the management of these funds, insurance companies charge Commission remuneration... And even moderate amounts - 0.1% of the amounts taken into management bring millions of dollars in income.

However, something else is even more important: huge investment resources turn insurance companies into one of the most influential external centers of financial control in relation to industrial corporations.

It should be noted that in the United States, all types of property insurance are legally voluntary. However, the established practice for a number of reasons why insurance certain types risk is a social necessity, often leads to the fact that the conclusion of insurance contracts becomes a necessity.

It should be noted that the insurance market in the USA (as opposed to the Russian insurance market) is finally formed. Insurance system The United States is one of the best in the world, this can be seen from various indicators (for example, in terms of payment of insurance premiums, the United States occupies 1st place in the world).

United Kingdom. The UK insurance business has for many years been concentrated in London as the world's financial center. The largest London insurance market serves the financial flows of a number of countries and companies. The prestige of the London international insurance market is reflected in the significant human potential of insurance specialists, the highly developed infrastructure of the market, as well as the presence here of the insurance corporation "Lloyd", well-known outside the UK. All of the largest insurance companies in the world have representative offices or subsidiaries in London. The central offices of all major international insurance and reinsurance brokers are also concentrated here. The oldest (founded in 1760) and the most authoritative classification society, the Lloyd Register of Shipping, operates. The headquarters of a number of international insurance organizations are located in London, as well as some structures of the national insurance market, whose activities are of an international nature.

The basic structure of the London international insurance market - Lloyd Corporation is represented by 400 insurance syndicates, which unite individuals - underwriters who directly carry out the insurance business of the corporation. Underwriters are unlimitedly liable for obligations arising from the terms of the insurance contracts they have entered into under the syndicate. Dynamic and mobile structures of syndicates with a pronounced specialization by types (classes) of insurance, form the economic environment of the international insurance market in the system of the Lloyd corporation. Each syndicate is represented in this market through a leading underwriter who directly takes risks for insurance in the syndicate from the intermediary broker Lloyd. Membership of Lloyd's corporate structure is open to all UK citizens (residents) and foreigners (non-residents).

The functions of the UK government insurance supervisor are vested in the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), which is chaired by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. In practice, day-to-day insurance supervision is carried out by the Insurance Division of the Department of Trade and Industry.

Insurance companies and individuals not eligible to engage in insurance business in the UK until they receive a DTI license. Exception from general rule applies to members of the insurance corporation "Lloyd", friendly societies and trade unions that provide insurance to their members during strikes. With regard to members of the insurance corporation "Lloyd", licensing issues are transferred to the competence of the highest body of this organization (Council of Lloydis).

A special structure of the English insurance market is the Policyholders Protection Board, which was created in accordance with the Policyholders Protection Act 1975. In addition, the said law provided the necessary conditions to create a special compensation fund policyholders, which is formed by cash contributions from all insurance companies licensed and carrying out insurance operations in the UK. The level of deductions to the compensation fund is based on the amount of the net insurance premium collected by the insurer under insurance contracts concluded with the public. In the event of bankruptcy of an insurance company, the funds of the compensation fund will be used to compensate in whole or in part their losses under compulsory insurance contracts.

Germany. The core of the social security system in Germany is compulsory social security. According to German labor law, the employer is obliged to insure the employee against a number of social damages. The term "social insurance" means five types of different insurance contracts developed by social and labor departments on the basis of the Code of Social Law:

1) state health insurance provided by state health funds;

2) state compulsory insurance in case of need for sickness or old age care, provided by the state health funds;

3) pension insurance provided by land or federal insurance companies for employees;

4) job loss insurance provided by the federal labor office;

5) compulsory state insurance against the consequences of an accident at work, provided by the union of entrepreneurs of one or a related branch of industry.

All private entrepreneurs, both small ones representing the company in the singular and not having employees, and owners large enterprises with the right to hire employees, conclude their social insurance contracts on one's own. At the same time, they are legally exempted from two compulsory social insurance - insurance in case of job loss and pension insurance.

The financial basis is foundations social insurance... The system is based on the principle of "one for all and all for one". We are talking about mutual assistance of the insured, about uniting people who have been exposed to a certain risk; by distributing the load evenly on everyone, they want to limit the severity possible consequences for the individual. With their contributions, they co-finance insurance services and thereby acquire the right to receive services when insured event... The size mandatory contributions depends on their income; pension and unemployment benefit (in the event of an insured event) depend on the amount of their contributions. Payments for the listed types of insurance are made according to the same principle with the same volume of services for all insured persons. The amount of insurance premiums depends on the size wages an employee and is determined interest rate the respective insurance fund.

With regard to the aggregate value tax rate social insurance, then it depends on the type of health insurance fund chosen by the employee and can vary within 43-46% of the amount of the salary accrued to him.

Insurance premiums are paid together an employee and his employer in equal proportions. But the contributions for insurance against industrial accidents are paid in full by the employer. He is also responsible for the monthly deduction of all contributions to the health insurance funds, which redistribute the funds received to the appropriate social funds and the Federal Labor Agency.

Social insurance in Germany is compulsory and regulated by law. It should be noted that the funds received by social insurance funds from contributions are not sufficient to cover the costs of payments, so that the state regularly subsidizes the sphere of compulsory social insurance with very large amounts.

In Germany, the insurance market is tightly controlled by the state.

Its characteristic feature is the close connection of the insurance business with large industrial capital. Mutual participation in capital and management is widespread. Competition exists mainly at the level of distribution networks. Germany is clearly dominated by one insurance company, Alliance.

It accounts for 42% of life insurance and 38% of all other insurance industries.

Until the recent merger of the two French insurance companies AXA and IAR, Alliance was the largest insurance company in Europe. In second place in Germany is an insurance company called "R + V". Despite the absence of legal restrictions for foreign capital, the German insurance market is relatively closed. This is due to the psychology of the population: the Germans prefer their insurers.

Insurance services are traditional, German insurance companies are not prone to risky experiments. For example, Germany is the only country in Europe, apart from Russia, where mixed life insurance contracts are still sold, guaranteeing 100% receipt of the insurance amount in the event of a client's death and in case of his surviving until the deadline.

Thus, insurance in different countries demonstrates a significant variety of forms and adapts to the social and economic conditions of the population.

Now let's look at the entire volume of insurance premiums collected in 2008 around the world and make an analysis.

Table 1. The volume of insurance premiums collected worldwide in 2008

In 2008, the volume of collected insurance premiums by all insurance companies in the world reached 4.3 trillion US dollars.

Table 1 shows that the leaders in the collection of insurance premiums are, such regions as: North America and Western Europe, mainly due to the recognized leaders: the United States and Germany, France, Great Britain, respectively. Their share in the world market is 31.52% and 38.79%, respectively. Although, it should be noted that their growth rate over the past year has decreased in comparison with other regions that are experiencing growth. North America minus 3.1%, Western Europe minus 6.9%. According to this indicator, the greatest progress in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe + 9%, Oceania + 8.6% and Latin America +8,4%.

The lagging region in all respects is Africa. The world market share of this region is only 1.28%. The share of insurance in GDP is 3.57%.

The world leaders in the development of insurance are highly developed countries. Below is a table for some of them.

Table 2. The amount of collected premiums for some countries.

All the countries that were discussed above are presented in the table, from which it can be seen that developed countries are really world leaders, and developing countries are already behind them. Russia lags behind in many respects, which means that our society and our social insurance system have room to develop and move.

Comparative characteristics of the world insurance market are based on traditional indicators: the volume of insurance premiums by types of insurance and by regions of the world, the share of insurance premiums in the gross domestic product (GDP) of individual countries, and the density of insurance premiums per capita. The dynamics of the global insurance market is assessed according to the growth rates of the signed insurance premium by different countries and regions of the world economy.

The global insurance market is concentrated in the developed countries of North America, Western Europe, Japan and Oceania - they account for more than 90% of the total volume of insurance premiums (Table 25.1). Long-term developing countries and countries with emerging markets, which include the countries of Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, South and East Asia and Africa, account for about 10% of insurance premiums. In the most developed countries of Central and Eastern Europe, as well as in the developing insurance markets of Latin America, Southeast Asia (GDP per capita - 5-8 thousand dollars), the share of insurance premiums in GDP is about 3-5%; in the USA, European countries and Japan, Hong Kong (GDP per capita 30–40 thousand dollars), the share of insurance premiums in GDP reaches 10–12%. Russia, unfortunately, lags far behind in terms of the analyzed indicators. In 2010, the share of insurance premiums in Russia's GDP was only 2.3%, which is 3-5 times less than in developed countries.

Table 25.1

World insurance market by region (2010)

Statistics show that emerging markets have more growth potential than developed countries(Table 25.2). This is primarily due to the greater potential economic growth countries with economies in transition, significant market capacity and unsatisfied demand of the population for insurance services of various purposes, which in the centrally planned model of the economy was satisfied by the system state insurance and social security.

Table 25.2

Growth rates of global insurance markets (%)

The insurance market and its participants felt a serious impact economic crisis when market participants gradually began to experience a tendency to save and save on "deferred" financial services, which include insurance. However, such a slight overall increase in insurance premiums in industrialized countries in 2009–2010 (by 1.4% but compared to 4.0% in 2005–2006) is explained not only by the global financial crisis, but also by the fact that the Japanese insurance market, which makes up about 1/5 of the global market, showed a negative increase in this indicator due to the tsunami in April 2011 and the man-made disaster in March 2011 at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant, which caused damage equal to almost a quarter of Japan's GDP. The American insurance market is also not showing growth. The negative performance of the American insurance market was offset by a significant increase in premium collection in Southeast Asia (18.8% in 2009-2010) and especially in China, where the growth of the insurance market was an absolute record worldwide - 26.2% in 2009–2010 The growth rates of life insurance premiums fell especially significantly in industrialized countries (negative growth of -2.7% compared to 8% in developing countries), which is primarily due to the crisis that unfolded in stock markets... The situation with premiums in the insurance market other than life insurance turned out to be somewhat better: developed countries showed an increase of 5%, while developing countries - 8.6%. However, this increase was accompanied by a significant increase in the loss ratio due to the growth of insurance payments. In general, in the world in the period from 1996 to 2010, a pronounced positive trend in the collection of insurance premiums is noticeable (an increase of about 30%), however, here the insurance sector other than life insurance shows better dynamics than the life insurance sector (Table 25.3 ).

Table 25.3

Dynamics of collection of insurance premiums (world market, mln USD)

Despite the crisis, in 2010 the total volume of premiums collected in the world exceeded the same indicator in 2009 and was estimated at more than $ 4.3 trillion. premiums, although before 2007 this figure was less than half. In 2011, the overall growth of premiums in the world was negative (-0.8%), however, due to the depreciation of the dollar against other currencies in nominal terms, the growth amounted to 6%. All insurance markets of developed countries in 2011 showed negative growth (-1.1%), emerging markets showed a small but stable growth (1.3%). General indicators however, do not reflect significant regional differences in insurance performance. For example, life insurance premiums in Western Europe fell 9.8%, while in North America they grew 2.3%. Life insurance premium collection volumes in China and India declined due to new regulations on the sale of insurance products, and non-life insurance premiums in these countries continued to rise.

According to relative indicators illustrating the level of development of the insurance market (and, consequently, the level of socio-economic development), such as insurance premiums per capita and the share of premiums in the gross national product (GNP), industrially developed countries traditionally lead. The leading positions are occupied by the United Kingdom and Japan: in 2010, residents of these countries spent $ 4497 ​​and $ 4390 on insurance, respectively. Among the emerging insurance markets, attention should be paid to the fast-growing insurance markets of the Arab countries: the United Arab Emirates achieved a premium of $ 1,248 per capita. This does not contradict the trends that are observed in the global market: the largest international insurers pay close attention to these markets, actively developing takaful services. A special place in the global insurance market belongs to China, which occupies the sixth place in the general table of ranks. This emerging giant country achieved a per capita insurance premium of $ 158, and already recorded a record rate of growth in insurance premiums in 2010 (26.2%). For comparison: Russian market in 2010 ranked 19th in the world with an insurance premium density of USD 297. China's modest result in terms of insurance development is due to the country's large population and uneven socio-economic development of the territories.